


he wears the gag to hide his smile

by aerxplane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel)-centric, Post-Thor (2011), Pre-Thor: The Dark World, Short One Shot, im sorry for this trash fic, loki is my son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 17:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15490773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerxplane/pseuds/aerxplane
Summary: It's a name that will always taste like regret and acid on his tongue, burning his mind whenever he speaks it.  Odinson.





	he wears the gag to hide his smile

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this is my first fic and no one knows who I am lmao

He builds himself a kingdom in his head, where their roles are flipped, where the bugles sound at Loki’s greatness and the paladins laugh and tell tales about Thor the fool over mead and meat.  He dreams up magnificent galas, elegant dances of cold sharp knives spilling even colder blood, dark chess pieces as large as statues, deep barrels of heavy wine that warms their insides in the winter, and they all worship Loki whose power grew like a drought and took them all like a wicked black star, gleaming darkness and spitting death like the God that he is.

 

Like the God that he’s supposed to be.

 

Because even when they were children, Loki Odinson knew that he wasn’t his brother.  It was in the despairing glances his father threw his way with his cold eyes, how he never even bothered to hide his disappointment, and it only made Loki resent him more; how this man who called himself his father didn’t even try to love him like a son should be loved.  Even in his mother, in how sweet perfect Frigga looked at her dark-haired son with sympathy, and though she treated him like her own child he knew that something was wrong, because she always looked sad around him.

 

It seemed like everyone knew it— this unspoken thing that he never approached because he wouldn't even know where to begin.

 

It's there when Odin turns away as Frigga calls him her son, it's there when Sif's face blanches when he calls himself Odinson— as it figures that because she's the Goddess of War she is not the Goddess of subtlety, but worst of all, it's there as he and his brother grow up and they get larger and taller and the smile on Thor's face gets wider while the doubt in Loki's mind only begins to stifle him, because Thor looks just like Odin now that he's grown older and Loki?  He doesn't look like anybody at all. His face is cold as ice, his skin pale, and the children begin to tell tales of how the Prince of Asgard will grab them by the ankle and tear them to bits if they don’t eat all their food or finish all their training, and the kingdom is quiet when the Prince steps out.

 

It becomes clear when Odin starts to refer to Thor as his son, his single son, and Loki as an afterthought. And that's when Loki begins to hate his father when he so obviously favors Thor of his two sons, whether by blood or not, both the boys that he has raised. And it's even worse when Thor stands up for him, treats him like brother, treats him like family because it becomes even more unforgivable when Loki begins to hate him too, purely for being lucky, and of course that leads to Loki hating himself.

 

It always does.

 

After Odin finally reveals, finally, after years of deceit and lying to his younger son that they aren't related by blood, that he is, infact the son of Laufey, Loki isn't surprised or distraught, he's just disappointed in his father, in his family, but most of all in himself, for holding even a tiny shred of hope that Odin might one day accept him, because even after all these years growing up in Asgard he had never really been his son and Odin had never really been his father, where even through all those sparring sessions and banquets overflowing with heavy mead and rich bloody meats, they were only ever for Thor.  Thor, the God of Thunder; Thor, Odin’s firstborn; Thor Odinson, the future of Asgard.

 

It's a name that will always taste like regret and acid on his tongue, burning his mouth and mind whenever he speaks it.  Odinson.

 

And so, Loki acts out, in the only way he knows how to.  Because there is a reason that he is the God of Mischief, but even when he permanently begins calling himself Laufeyson, especially in front of his mother just to hurt her, it isn’t enough, and he finally goes to Thanos who gives him a sceptre and an Infinity Stone and tells him to run wild...

 

So he recalls the gleam in his brother's eye when he talked about Earth and the lady Jane and coffee, and Loki decides to go there, and the moment he sees the panic behind Thor's eyes, he knows he made the right decision because finally he knows where to hit him where it hurts.  So he does, he pulls up Thor's guilt from deep in his veins and he takes this shame and feeds on it, crushing it to pieces in his hands and shoving it back into Thor's chest and tries to feel accomplished, like he finally showed his brother exactly what he's done to him, but feels nothing, no difference, no success threading through his blood, and instead a stone drops into his stomach, pushing and weighing down his insides.  He doesn't know why, until the stone in his stomach rattles and he realises that it's because he still refers to Thor as his brother.

 

So he requests the Chitauri army and goes to town, destroying New York, pushing the thought that he might have to face his brother to the back of his mind, and instead finds himself enjoying Earth as well, but for different reasons than Thor.  The people here are so helpless, they know nothing of the powers that consume him, so when he finally does let it burst, let the true energy of his abilities and the Mind Stone explode, he could conquer Midgard with one arm tied behind his back because the people here, they cower and run and bow to him, and when he calls himself their God just to test them, they don’t react and he realises that he won, even when banished from his own realm, he won.

 

The Avengers overpower him, just like he planned and when Thor looks into his eyes with disappointment, Loki only feels triumph, because when he is brought back to Asgard against his will (or so they think), he sees the expression shamelessly shown on Odin’s face, and he wants to laugh at the man who he once worshipped, wants to laugh at the thought of Odin’s belief that Loki was finally vanquished.

 

So when the Prince of Asgard is finally imprisoned, the children rejoice and live through their childhoods without the fear of the God of Mischief, and the adults shake their heads and sigh at the potential he could have brought, if only he weren’t so, well, Jötunn.  Either way, the silence that he once brought to Asgard is lifted like a curse, and it seems that the whole universe is content with Loki being locked away, deep beneath the surface of the realm, left to rot like a sewer rat.

 

And so he sits in his cell, each wall deathly translucent without privacy, a small bed in the corner and bedraggled books splayed pathetically over his small floor space and he is content, even with the few belongings he is allowed to keep, he waits.

 

He waits because he knows that in this confined space, his rage will grow and build until it stifles the air around him and it will come to be the only thing that people can trust.  That his anger and injustice will fester like a virus and purge on anything and everything in his path, because once he gets out— and he knows he will get out, no one will be able to stop him.

 

High above his cell, Asgard celebrates with ale, and song, and booming stories of Thor’s greatness, of Loki the fool— and far beneath them he sleeps, with their gag bound to his mouth to hide his smile.


End file.
